Norway Feature | American Immigrants of Color

The Americans of Norway

With its strong social safety net and reputation for friendliness, Norway has had a lot to offer Americans of color who, because of work or relationships, have made a home in the Scandanavian country. Although Norway has had a long history of ethnic homogeneity, contemporary immigrants have begun to carve out a place for themselves as Norway joins the rest of Europe in diversifying. The Root shares the stories of a few American immigrants, who discuss racism, quality of life, and American privilege above the 57th parallel.

Outlas Outreach

The Ongoing Insecurity of LGBT Ghanaians

A relatively stable constitutional democracy, Ghana has seen the beginnings of official outreach to its LGBT citizens in recent years as it has signed on to pro-LGBT international accords and treaties, but new research from Human Rights Watch (HRW) reveals ongoing persecution and gender-based vulnerabilities. Though rarely enforced, a law criminalizing same-sex relations that emerged from the country’s colonial legacy has led to the political and corporal endangerment of LGBT Ghanaians, exposing them to intimidation, violence, fears of public exposure, and little to no recourse to law enforcement protection. Lesbians, bisexual women, and trans men have faced especially high levels of violence and labor precarity, and anti–domestic violence laws have done little to protect them given the lack of trust in the legal system. In response, HRW conducted interviews with LGBT Ghanaians to track insecurity across a range of social, legal, and economic domains and issued a set of recommendations to improve protections for the community.